Kissing Magic (Portals to Whyland Book 2) – Day Leitao

*I know that this book says you don’t need to read the first one and it’s true, but it’s nice to have a better understanding of the world and the characters, so I would recommend reading it first anyway.*

Synopsis

Kiss him. Don’t fall in love.

Break a spell with a kiss. Karina has heard and seen enough weird stuff for this request to sound legit.

At 16, Karina has a shot at adventure—and an odd first kiss—when she’s called to Whyland, a kingdom in another dimension, to save Sian.
Sian. Last time she saw him, they were in opposite sides. Still, other than trying to take the kingdom for very selfish reasons and keeping her friend hostage, he was pretty nice. And he sent her a book. Maybe he’s not that bad. Well, she’s not going to leave him enchanted just because he was a greedy jerk some months ago. And it’s not like kissing him is some kind of torture. Far from torture. Still, Karina’s smart enough not to fall in love—or at least to tell herself not to.
But it turns out that risking a broken heart is the smallest of her problems. As an ancient darkness rises in Whyland, Karina will have to take a stand—and face more dangers than she’s ever expected.

If you like romantic fantasy and adventure with snarky and witty characters, you’ll have a great time reading Kissing Magic. This is book 2 in Portals to Whyland but you can jump straight into it without having read book 1. This novel is recommended for readers 13 and older.

Review

Karina goes back to Whyland to save Sian from a weird spell that made him a statue. Only a kiss could wake him up and for some reason Darian expected Karina’s would work.
While they tried to wake Sian up, Cayla, Darian and Karina were attacked by Kyons, sort of clay creatures that mimicked an incomplete human shape. Karina couldn’t let Sian-statue abandoned so she run and ended up teleporting to her own dimension with him.

Karina crossed her arms. “I kissed you on the cheek. Friendly kiss.”
His eyes widened, then he frowned. “That’s cheating!”

Sian finally woke up and warned Karina that the Kyons were after her. She didn’t believe they could reach her dimension, but they did and attacked her and her best friend Zoe.
To save her, Karina teleported to Whyland with the Kyon and met Sian again. So, she stayed with him in the Darloom Castle to find a way to stop the Kyons. Karina repeatedly told herself to avoid falling in love. But maybe it’s not that easy.

She’d been fascinated with him from the moment she first saw him. She’d told herself he was weird. Weird were her feelings. And now she’d have to deal with them.

Meanwhile, Cayla and Darian are finally together but now they will have a harder and unexpected problem that may end their relationship. They become the king and queen of Whyland in Lylah’s absence.

So, the girls are clearly in bigger problems than before, and now they must add love to the list.

Sian is seriously one of the best characters I’ve read about. He’s really complex and has a superior intelligence. He knows how to get whatever he wants but he’s not a murderer monster and he never lies, as he makes clear a lot of times. It’s clear that Sian wants Karina by his side. But the question is why?

Sian tilted his head. “Nobody believes in love at first sight. Until they do.”

Karina is amazing, she’s clearly a normal girl that found herself in the middle of too many unknown things, but she grew up along the story becoming braver and smarter. She still makes some silly mistakes but that’s only because she’s naive. Above all the new things she’s living, she falls in love for the first time and with the worst option possible (although I disagree on this). Sian, the weird guy that flirted with her after kidnaping her and Cayla. Now she and whole Whyland have bigger problems than ever before.

Sian stared at her. “It was a joke, then. All a joke.”
“It wasn’t. But you never told me what you wanted to do, never. You spent time away from me, probably planning whatever it is you’re going to do, and you never said anything. You never asked what I thought of that.”

Cayla and Darian have finally sorted things out, but Cayla is still stubborn, and Darian has an extreme need of protecting her, so they have a lot of fights around this until they both understand their mistakes. We can also see a little more of the past of them both, which is way more interesting than expected.

Cayla snorted. “You said it all, Darian. If I made the decisions. The problem is that I don’t.”
That was unfair. “I’m doing this for you! For us!”

I can’t say much about the other characters in the book as there would probably be too much spoilers.

In summary I loved this book. I’ve liked a lot the first one but was clearly for younger people. This one has a much more complete story with much better characters, or more than that, better presented ones. The evolution of the characters, mainly Karina and Sian, is really nice. You can truly see they are growing up and learning instead of getting stuck.
Something interesting are the occasional explanations of how technology works in Whyland.
More worlds, more magic, more love. What else can you ask for?
Also, the fairytales vibes are still here, and I love them. Therefore, I recommend this book 100%, even more than book 1.

One thing I was forgetting. I didn’t read this book, I listened to the audiobook.
About the audiobook itself, the voice is really nice to listen. My only complain would be that, as it’s only one narrator, when the conversations got a little faster it was really hard for me to know who was saying what. Anyway I enjoyed it a lot. This was my first audiobook and it opened my mind for keep listening them.